Dark Angel Academy (The Complete Series) - G. Bailey Page 0,31

of interest on the academy castle.

“Riley, can I work with you?” I ask him, hoping he will say yes. I need us to get back to some kind of normal, and we haven’t had any time alone together recently. He sighs before nodding once, holding out his hand. I grip his hand as we get up and leave the room after the other students, feeling Master Gabriel’s eyes on me.

“I didn’t know you liked vampires, Katy,” Riley says into the awkward silence drifting over us. “Or guys like Henry or Thallon, while we are on the subject.”

Tugging the ends of my hair, I grab his arm and stop him in the corridor. “You will always be my best friend; you don’t have to be scared of losing me.”

“I’m not scared,” he scoffs, tugging his arm away from me, but I see right through it and we know it.

“Why don’t we ditch class and go and get snacks? We could find a tree to sit under and talk like we used to all the time?” I ask, and he runs his fingers through his hair a few times.

“Alright,” he finally agrees, and I grin, hooking my arm in his. “As long as you don’t spill orange juice on me like that time in middle school. It was so embarrassing to go back to school with a big orange stain all over my trousers.”

“If I remember right, you poured your chocolate milk on me as payback the next day. Chocolate milk on trousers looks way worse,” I say, laughing. He laughs with me, and for a bit, it’s just like the old days with Riley and me.

And I wish it could always stay like this.

Chapter 17

“Sneaking out of class is against the rules, Miss Lightson.” I jump out of my skin as I step into my room, finding Master Gabriel standing there waiting for me. How do the stairs enchantment not work on him?

With a sheepish grin, I reply. “I’m sorry?”

“It can be our secret, Miss Lightson. Now please come with me,” he asks, and I know I don’t exactly have a choice. I follow him out of my room and up the stairs. We head outside the academy and right around to the back. He opens a door I’ve never been in before, and I follow him into a massive library. This must be the tallest room in the academy, with rows and rows of books going all the way up to the glass ceiling at the top of the room. There are no ladders or stairways to get to the top books, and everything is silver. Silver walls, silver tiles on the floor, and a chandelier hanging in the middle of the room, sparkling bright white light around the room, reflecting off its crystals. “Please wait here a second.” Before I can say yes, Master Gabriel stretches out his long white wings and flies into the air. He circles around a few times before stopping at a bookshelf and taking out a heavy-looking, black leather-bound book.

Watching Master Gabriel fly down to the ground is beautiful. Angels really are beautiful, if not a wee bit deadly.

“Any answers you wish about vampires can be found in this book,” he tells me and offers me the heavy book. I take the book and flip the first page open, seeing it’s a book full of paintings. The first one is an image of two beautiful men in white cloaks, their hands on the pregnant stomach of a woman with long black hair on a grey stone table, her skin paler than snow.

“This is a painting of the very first vampire. It is said two gods, both male, came from the sky and kissed the belly of a young woman. They promised her a child but failed to mention the child would be forever cursed the life of a vampire,” he explains to me. “The woman died in childbirth, as do all female vampires who bring life into the world.”

“That’s so sad,” I say, running my fingers across the painting. Master Gabriel closes the book in my hands, and I hold it to my chest. I want to know more, and I’m not sure how Master Gabriel knew that, but he did.

“Much of the past of vampires, angels, demons, wolves and fairy tales are submersed in pain and misery. We must find a way to be better than those before us, to be stronger,” he states. “I hope, before I die, I will find a